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Recent Publications by New English Review Authors
Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
by Theodore Dalrymple
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple
Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq
Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky
Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple
Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq
Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple
What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq
Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple
The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq
Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq
Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky
Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Mixing it

In the comments to Boris Johnson's potty article on grammar schools, an accomplished metaphor mixer says:

To abolish them because people didn't like the finality of the 11+ is using a sledgehammer to crack the baby in the bathwater.

But the baby is dead in the water, which is now under the bridge in a nutshell.

Somebody once said of the farcical "road map for peace":

The road map was de-railed before it got off the ground.

Planes, trains and automobiles - all delightfully jumbled up. Jim Carlton gives us his favourite mixed metaphors here:

We could stand here and talk until the cows turn blue.

You could have knocked me over with a fender.

He was watching me like I was a hawk.

I’ll get it by hook or ladder.

He’s a wolf in cheap clothing.

They’re diabolically opposed.

He received a decease and desist order.

I wouldn’t eat that with a ten-foot pole.

Take a flying hike.

I shot the wind out of his saddle.

He’s not the one with his ass in a noose.

A loose tongue spoils the broth.

It’s all moth-eared.

I can read him like the back of my book.

From now on, I’m watching everything you do with a fine-tuned comb.

It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake.

He’s like a duck out of water.

These hemorrhoids are a real pain in the neck.

It’s time to grab the bull by the tail and look him in the eye.

I wouldn’t be caught dead there with a ten-foot pole.

I hope he gets his curve ball straightened out.

It’s time to step up to the plate and lay your cards on the table.

He’s burning the midnight oil from both ends.

You can’t change the spots on an old dog.

It sticks out like a sore throat.

It’s like looking for a needle in a hayride.

People are dying like hotcakes.

He’s a little green behind the ears.

You can’t go in there cold turkey with egg on your face.

We have to get all our ducks on the same page.

The fan is gonna hit the roof.

I have a lot of black sheep in my closet.

I'm sweating like a bullet.

 

And my all-time favorite:

 

She’s suffering from a detached rectum.

Some of those - for example, the last one - are really malapropisms. Malapropisms should not be confused with mondegreens. It has been proved conclusively here that that more makers of malapropisms make mondegreens than makers of mondegreens make malapropisms. Malapropistes would write things incorrectly as well as say them, whereas mondegreeners would not read things incorrectly. I think Lady Mondegreen is more intelligent and more of a femme fatale than Mrs Malaprop, but I wouldn’t go to the barracudas over this.

 

Some beg to differ, which buggers belief.

Posted on 5:23 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
17 May 2007
Hugh Fitzgerald
I have a reply, but it is unprintable. Use your imagination:

17 May 2007
Send an emailMary Jackson

My imagination - in my wildest dreams - says: "You're quite right, Mary. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways."

These wild dreams also contain a large number of pigs flying over a frozen lake in Hell.

I like "burning the midnight oil at both ends". Perhaps you'll have to do this if you have no light for your lucubrations.



17 May 2007
Send an emailReactionry
Once again Hugh has subjected Mary to verbal abstruse.
I thought adding a comment to this thread would be easy, but it's like taking candy out of the mouth of babes.
Between Scylla and the deep blue sea.
Between Iraq and a place where nice guys finish last.
Take the measure of a man twice and cut him down to size once.
The road to Damascus is paved with good intentions.
To Ken Livingstone (from a Londoner, I presume): Late to bed, late to rise, puts a man squarely in the middle of the Missus' thighs.
With respect to femme fatale, sometimes it's a sense of place or place settings which matters - Brian Roberts to Sally Bowles,(not in a Cabaret, but at table next to Monty Python's Mr. Creosote):
"You're about as fatale as an after-dinner mint."
And finally -remembering part of something inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Lesbia which I hacked out years ago: "My candle bums at both ends, it will not last the night..."
Oh! My friend! and Oh! My toes! -as in a Japanese pillow book, I guess.
-back to bed


17 May 2007
Richard
Then there is the concept of the "Irish bull"--see the article in Wikipedia. An example I recall being given of this phenomenon is "with a pistol in each hand and a sword in the other".

17 May 2007
Send an emailReactionrly

Mondegrin & Bear It

From Krug: Nothing ventured; mothing gained.



17 May 2007
Siddhartha Vicious
Actually, while the rest may be a massive mish-mash of masticated metaphors, "Like a duck out of water" is a common metaphor which has long been used to mean someone who is out of his element .

17 May 2007
Siddhartha Vicious

And boy, do I feel stupid.  As soon as I clicked the submit comment button I realized I had misremembered the metaphor "a fish out of water."

 



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